Section 1.6 is another appendix about how this series relates to Philosophy Of Mind. My opinion of Philosophy Of Mind is: I’m against it! Or rather, I’ll say plenty in this series that would be highly relevant to understanding the true nature of consciousness, free will, and so on, but the series itself is firmly restricted in scope to questions that can be resolved within the physical universe (including physics, neuroscience, algorithms, and so on). I’ll leave the philosophy to the philosophers.
At the risk of outing myself as a thin-skinned philosopher, I want to push back on this a bit. If we are taking “philosophy of mind” to mean, “the kind of work philosophers of mind do” (which I think we should), then your comment seems misplaced. Crucially, one need not be defending particular views on “big questions” about the true nature of consciousness, free will, and so on to be doing philosophy of mind. Rather, much of the work philosophers of mind do is continuous with scientific inquiry. Indeed, I would say some philosophy of mind is close to indistinguishable from what you do in this post! For example, lots of this work involves trying to carve up conceptual space in a way that coheres with empirical findings, suggests avenues for further research, and renders fruitful discussion easier. Your section 1.3 in this post features exactly the kind of conceptual work that is the bread-and-butter of philosophy. So, far from leaving philosophy to the philosophers, I actually think your work would fit comfortably into the more empirically informed end of contemporary philosophy of mind. To end on a positive note, I think it’s really clearly written, fascinating, and fun to read. So thanks!
The thing you quoted was supposed to be very silly and self-deprecating, but I wrote it very poorly, and it actually wound up sounding kinda judgmental. Oops, sorry. I just rewrote it. I agree with everything you wrote in this comment.
At the risk of outing myself as a thin-skinned philosopher, I want to push back on this a bit. If we are taking “philosophy of mind” to mean, “the kind of work philosophers of mind do” (which I think we should), then your comment seems misplaced. Crucially, one need not be defending particular views on “big questions” about the true nature of consciousness, free will, and so on to be doing philosophy of mind. Rather, much of the work philosophers of mind do is continuous with scientific inquiry. Indeed, I would say some philosophy of mind is close to indistinguishable from what you do in this post! For example, lots of this work involves trying to carve up conceptual space in a way that coheres with empirical findings, suggests avenues for further research, and renders fruitful discussion easier. Your section 1.3 in this post features exactly the kind of conceptual work that is the bread-and-butter of philosophy. So, far from leaving philosophy to the philosophers, I actually think your work would fit comfortably into the more empirically informed end of contemporary philosophy of mind. To end on a positive note, I think it’s really clearly written, fascinating, and fun to read. So thanks!
Thanks for the kind words!
The thing you quoted was supposed to be very silly and self-deprecating, but I wrote it very poorly, and it actually wound up sounding kinda judgmental. Oops, sorry. I just rewrote it. I agree with everything you wrote in this comment.